Ducky Paredes

“But, don’t we have even more loans outstanding today and aren’t the amounts taken from the public purse and the levels of graft and corruption even worse than what they were in Marcos’ time?”

 

by Ducky Paredes

 

Sociologist Josephine Aguilar calls it “People Power Fatigue.” I believe, on the other hand, that what the reluctance to rise up against an incompetent and venal leader is a sign of the maturation of the Pinoy.

Think about it. We have had two People Powers and what have they gained us. The governments after the first President after Marcos have turned out to be worse than the government that Marcos gave us. We now owe more than we ever did even if among the things that we were screaming about in People Power One was the heavy burden of the loans that Marcos took out and subsequently stole.

But, don’t we have even more loans outstanding today and aren’t the amounts taken from the public purse and the levels of graft and corruption even worse than what they were  in Marcos’ time?

We obviously did not yet learn from that because a dozen years later, we did the same thing again. Without any real proof of the things that were being blamed on President Joseph Estrada, we took to the streets in People Power Two to root him out of the People’s Palace.  Within hours, we had installed the Vice President as President – illegally, one might add, since the processes that should have been followed in changing Presidents under our constitution were ignored.

Instead, the Supreme Court took to applying voodoo or worse – flipping open the Bible and reading the open page for guidance on what the SC should do. Of course, it came up with the wrong decision, Following the proper procedures in making one’s decisions always produce better decisions than a coin toss or reading the tea leaves or throwing animal bones on the ground can possibly give you.

Now, six year later, we are faced with the decision of whether or not to mount another one. People Power Three, anyone? No way, Jose!

It is not “People Power Fatigue.” What we are doing in resisting the easier path to governance change is choosing the smarter way. WE have lost both times that we rushed out in the streets to change governments with the heated choice of a mob. What this means is that we have learned from our mistakes.

Clearly, it is better for us to wait out this administration’s exit into nothingness than to force a change in governments without the preliminaries of an election campaign and an election. This is, after all, what Democracy is all about. While the People have the Power, it is not to be used in haste or in the heat of battle. Instead, that power manifests itself in an election where we choose the leaders that we want and who, hopefully, will have been the better choice.

 As Pinoys, we have always known that decisions made in anger or when we are highly agitated are not the best decisions; yet, we made the biggest collective decisions of our lives as a society in the heat of the moment. They turned out – not surprisingly – to have been bad decisions to wit: Wouldn’t our live have been better if we had waited for the Marcos regime to close down and another government installed properly after it instead of having a revolutionary government proclaimed by a small group of politicians who then took over everything? Wouldn’t we all have been better off, if we exercised the wisdom to wait out Estrada’s term?

In truth, and this is probably what everyone now realizes, the sudden changes that we made in our governments did not benefit the body politic in general but only a few politicians who knew how to work themselves into the tent for the victors.

The people in whose name power was taken and without whose support no change in regimes could have happened were still left out in the cold to fend for themselves while the politicians and the big boys of business and industry were all in the winners’ well-heated tent.

We used to smile in Malacanang. While looking at the pictures taken by our press photographers at every function, at the irony of it all which was that in looking at the photos taken during Marcos’ time and the ones that we were producing, the photos were similar – they were all of the same families that had been going to Malacanang functions since the time of the first Philippine President.

I believe we have learned, as a people, that the best way to change governments is though the ballot. No cal for communal actions ill succeed since this is just another way of calling on us to do the same foolish things that we did before which never did anything positive for us.

 

We have a letter from a Pinoy who is probably abroad: “I watched some parts of the senate hearing on TV and I read some newspaper articles about the CBCP pronouncement about Lozada.

“It seems to me that Filipinos have really lost their moral bearings. Imagine, a senator, Mar Roxas, making a hero out of an admitted corrupt government official like Lozada? Imagine, church groups making this immoral person, as some sort of a champion, a person to be idolized? I saw some nuns on TV getting amused when Lozada said he might probably accept a “balato” from a kickback. Imagine a former president giving support to somebody who defrauded the Filipino people?

“Mayroon pa kayang pagasa ang Pilipino sa mga leaders (kuno) na ito.” — Dan Pena

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To my mind, Dan, meron naman! What probably needs to happen is for the younger leaders to take over so that they can bring new ideas of governance to the business of government. Let us not elect any more from my generation – those over sixty. Let us prefer younger leaders for every position.

Maybe the energy and (hopefully) the ideals of the young will bring us to a brighter tomorrow.

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hvp 02.12.08)

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